The present invention relates to an electronic or e-mail filter system as well as a method of filtering unwanted e-mail messages.
No cogent argument can legitimately be made refuting the fact that technology while generally benefitting mankind, does have its occasional deficiencies. This is certainly true with respect to the communications industry. Unfortunately, each technology advancement relating to the ease and facility of providing communications between various individuals or companies have created minor headaches or problems. Although used So sporadically since the early 1920""s the utilization of the airplane in the mail industry since the end of World War II allowed individuals and communities on both the east and west coast to be linked with one another. Mail sent from New York to Los Angeles would be received within two or three days from the date that the communication was originally posted. Although the use of airmail had a salutatory affect upon the communication between individuals and other entities, various companies seized upon this relatively inexpensive means of communication to inundate the public with a large number of junk mail solicitations. Unfortunately, to the chagrin of many of these junk mail operators, the public could generally determine which mail was important and which was not, based upon a number of factors such as the type of envelopes which were utilized, the return address of the sender as well as the manner in which the sendee was addressed. Therefore, many of these solicitations were never opened and were merely discarded.
The deregulation of the telecommunications industry as well as the increased usage of xe2x80x9c800xe2x80x9d type numbers has resulted in an increased number of unwanted telephone solicitations. While tending to be an annoyance, once the called party determines that they are not interested in any solicitations or the type of solicitations offered by the caller, the called party can merely hang up his or her receiver.
Increased use of facsimile machines in both the work environment as well as personal facsimile machines at home created another avenue for unwanted solicitations. Since technology allowed a single letter of solicitation to be transmitted to a large number of facsimile machines with ease, it is easy to see that facsimile machine solicitations became an annoying problem, particularly when the individuals machine was receiving a large number of correspondences utilizing the receivers own paper. Furthermore, these solicitations were tying up the users telephone line so that important messages were delayed or never received. Due to an outcry by the public, legislation was passed to forbid these types of unsolicited communications directed to facsimile machines.
The explosion in the personal computer xe2x80x9cPCxe2x80x9d industry has provided solicitors with yet another manner of sending unsolicited messages. More and more businesses as well as individual users are connected to one another over the Internet and Intranet 11. Similar to the situation with respect to facsimile machines, a solicitor can compose a message and send it on the Internet and Intranet 11 to a relatively large number of personal computers. Although these e-mail messages are not necessarily reproduced on paper in the manner that the facsimile messages were previously received, the receipt of these messages would prevent other legitimate messages from being received in a timely manner. Therefore, it is clear that a system and method of filtering unwanted e-mail messages must be developed to shield the PC user from the annoyance of unsolicited junk e-mail.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,619,648 issued to Canale et al is directed to a technique for reducing the amount of junk e-mail received by a user in an e-mail system. As illustrated with respect to FIG. 1 of the Canale et al patent, a user 105 who wishes to reduce the amount of junk e-mail which is received, would be provided with a mail filter 109. A mail item 119 in the system would include a standard e-mail message as well as a recipient specifier 121 which uses non-address information to further describe the recipients who would receive the e-mail as well as a referral list 127 which is a list of potential recipients who pass the e-mail on and of recipients to whom the e-mail was provided. The recipients specifier 129 also includes a recipient description 125. If the recipient description specifies a recipient which is of the same kind as that specified by the user model 113, the mail filter 109 adds the mail item 119 to filtered mail 115. The mail filter 109 can utilize the information in the referral list 127 to indicate a chain of referrals which resulted in the message being directed to the user 105. While this system can be utilized to reduce a users junk e-mail, it does not necessarily include a filter technique in which mail sent by a sender included in an approved guest list filter would be designated as such when received by the user. Additionally, this system is not utilized in a manner allowing an updated master list of junk e-mail addresses or senders to be developed and transmitted to other users in the system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,093,918 issued to Heyen et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,283,856 issued to Gross et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,377,354 issued to Scannell et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,632,011 issued to Landfield et al and U.S. Pat. No. 5,634,005 issued to Matsuo are all directed to various systems for sorting and managing electronic mail or similar messages. However, similar to the Canale et al patent, these patents do not describe a method or system in which electronic e-mail can be effectively filtered by the user as well as compiling an updatable master list of unwanted e-mail transmitters which is then transmitted to the end user for filter purposes.
The present invention overcomes the problems of the prior art by utilizing a method and system for filtering unwanted junk e-mail sent to the user""s computer. The user would include various addresses or other defining characteristics in a xe2x80x9cNo Admittance Listxe2x80x9d as well as a plurality of addresses in a xe2x80x9cGuest Listxe2x80x9d. An incoming e-mail whose addresses are included in the xe2x80x9cNo Admittance Listxe2x80x9d would be immediately discarded. Any address in the xe2x80x9cGuest Listxe2x80x9d would be immediately forwarded to an xe2x80x9cIn Boxxe2x80x9d. Any address not included in either the xe2x80x9cNo Admittance Listxe2x80x9d or the xe2x80x9cGuest Listxe2x80x9d would be forwarded to a xe2x80x9cWaiting Roomxe2x80x9d. The user would periodically review the e-mail included in the xe2x80x9cWaiting Roomxe2x80x9d. Based upon this review, the user would either discard the e-mail to a xe2x80x9cTrash Binxe2x80x9d or would send the e-mail to the xe2x80x9cIn Boxxe2x80x9d. The addresses of e-mails which were discarded after the users review could be automatically added to the xe2x80x9cNo Admittance Listxe2x80x9d. Additionally, the address of any e-mail added to the xe2x80x9cIn Boxxe2x80x9d after the user""s review could also be automatically added to the xe2x80x9cGuest Listxe2x80x9d. Addresses of e-mail which are discarded would be periodically sent to a filter server thereby adding the addresses to a master list. This master list is then periodically transmitted to all of the users in the system through a download server.
The following glossary of terms define various comments described in this application.
A Mail Server is any service that handles the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). Mail Servers are also known as Message Transport Systems (MTS). Examples of Mail Servers are Sendmail, Microsoft""s Exchange, etc.
Mail Storage refers to any type of system for storing electronic mail (usually stored per user in mailboxes). Mail Storage can consist of file storage, a database, etc.
A Mail Drop Service is any service that allows users to directly retrieve messages from their mailboxes. Users"" e-mail clients usually directly interact with a Mail Drop Service via some protocol. Examples of protocols used by Mail Drop Services are the Post Office Protocol (POP) and the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP).
A Mail Reader is any application that can send and retrieve e-mail via a Mail Drop Service. Mail Readers are also known as User Agents (UA). Examples of Mail Readers are Qualcomm""s Eudora, Microsoft Outlook, Netscape Communicator, Elm, Mh, etc.
Spam is any unwanted e-mail, also known as unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) or junk e-mail.